LP

Norwegian reissue crew Preservation Records have brought out Marcos Valle’s eponymous 1983 album (his 12th), now on vinyl for the first time ever.

As any YouTube disco surfer will know, ‘Estrelar’, the opening track, is a killer disco/boogie cut. The funky verse breaks are bolstered by a transcendent pop hook, elevating the song if only to break it back down in disco slap-bass euphoria.

Although the musicians on this record shine on feel-good, brass-heavy disco cuts like ‘Estrelar’ and ‘Dia D’, the synth-textured grooves found on popular Brazilian tune ‘Samba de Verão’ or ‘Naturalmente’ stay firmly put on the beach at sunset.

On tracks like ‘Para Os Fillhos de Abraão’, Valle gets himself into full Beach Boys pop crooner mode, complete with full band harmonies. There’s as many hooks as conga hits, just one of the reason why this a very special crossover album.

Valle is an extremely versatile singer, knowing how to work the inexplicable charm that Brazilian Portuguese has over pop ballads. He reaches out beyond the overdone disco formula and saccharine piano ballads common to lots of 80s Brazilian music. As a player on the album himself, this must have been important for Valle in his exposition .

Letta Mbulu’s seminal 1983 effort is a landmark in South African musical development, and the kind of record you would pass over in a bargain bin.

The first run of Be With Record’s reissue of this synth-funk classic in 2015 ran like water, and it wasn’t long before the Discogs stock exchange inflated with prices of the reissue resembling the original 1983 press. This September, Be With Records, in their great wisdom, have repressed the reissue of the original and you can buy it now. Lost? Then just listen.

The South African pop prodigy straddles the 45turns spectrum, from cosmic soliloquies echoing British New Wave (the oft-sampled ’Normalizo’) to hard disco boogie (’The Village’) and balearic odes (‘Down By The River’). Mbulu does all this without falling astray of her distinctly South African milieu: songs like the opener, ‘Juju’, with its chant-led energy and distinct bass guitar style. look forward to Paul Simon’s 1986 Southern African expedition, ‘Graceland’, released three years after ‘In The Music…’.

An extremely rare South African LP, ingeniously ahead of its time, once again available on vinyl and sounding as fresh as ever.

The reissue of ‘In The Music The Village Never Ends’ is available for a short time at Be With Records. If you’re strictly Discogs, skip the pirates and get it from disque72.